First day in the army

November 8th is one of the days I am bound to remember for a very long time in my life. It’s the day my military service started.
After hours spent with my uncle (he’s a retired general of the Greek armed forces) and a couple of friends that have recently completed their military service, I packed my stuff up and it was finally the time to get in the camp. Between 8am and 1pm I had to present myself and go through the gate in the camp in my hometown, and so around 9am I decided it was time.
Crossing the gate of the camp is the point that changes your life for a year long period radically. Supposedly you kind of get the creeps realizing gradually that this is gonna be your life for a year long time, but I didn’t. The first day pretty much went by with luggage checking (for forbidden objects etc), getting our measures, getting our clothes, going through a psychologist, medical examinations, vaccination, settling in and tidying up all our stuff in the room (we are 29 people in our room), trying on all the clothes to see if they fit, dressing up, learning some basics about how the room is supposed to look like (esp. your bed), meeting the people as they come. I was the third one to enter our room and so had plenty of time to settle in, get used to the idea that this is my life from now on, and basically meet all the people as they come in.
I realized quickly that there are really no irritating thoughts (or at least not any significant ones) regarding my getting used to the military way of living. The only irritating though is the fact that this whole thing is going to last for 12 months, and that I could be working in the meanwhile. Kind of like wasting my time a little bit. But that’s all.
One more realization is that I really will have no problem in the first month and a half, the reason being that most of the people in the room are 23+ years old, have graduated or worked before, and so the level of maturity and trust among us was high from the very first day. And it still is, 20 days later.
At some point in time I looked at everyone around me, in military gear. And I though to myself “What a weird picture – these people all came in with their casual clothes today, and now they all look the same”. T struck me that I was wearing the same gear, but I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror yet, after already being in the camp for 5 hours. I went straight to the washroom and looked in the mirror. I cannot describe the picture, but as soon as I manage to work out how to put photos on this (new for me) blog, I will let you see for yourselves. It was an interesting picture nevertheless.
Adjusting to the discipline shouldn’t be a real problem, I said to myself the first day. I have a high amount of self control, and a strange love/hate relationship with discipline in my life, but whenever I really needed to be disciplined, I managed to get myself to do it. And this is going to be one of those time.22:30, day 1. Lights go off. Everyone is in their beds, no one is talking. Day 1 went by without any shocks or unexpected events. The only thing I have to work on is being able to sleep at 22:30 to wake at 6:00 on a daily level. The first day it took me a full hour to fall asleep, but in the end I got to it. Nervousness for making it on time for the morning wake up prevailed :-)